September 3 - Talk about a long day on the road! We were up before 7, to catch the ferry from Pender Island to Sydney, on Vancouver Island. We are travelling with Dan and Di, Gail's sister and her husband, on our way to Tofino, on the west coast of Van Island. Travelling in tandem is always tricky, but going this route with an rv and a car is not always easy. Dan and Di are driving, because we don't know where each couple will be going once we finish this little adventure. And it'll be nice to have a car to get around once we get set up in our r.v.
After getting groceries in Sydney, we promptly got lost, trying to pick up Highway 1 to go west, thanks to our famous Lucy, voice of our satellite tracker. She decided it would be shorter to take the ferry across to Mill Bay, so had us going down all manner of side streets, only to get to the ferry to find it was full, and not another for about 3 hours. So we had to go the long way around, which cost us about an hour. Love the gps system. Works most of the time, but not always.
Anyway, we found the main route, towards Nanaimo, and found the traffic extremely heavy, with traffic signals every couple of miles, most of which were red when we hit them. Slow going, to say the least. We finally got to the cutoff, where we had agreed to meet Dan and Di, highway 4, at Coombs. The place was jam packed with people enjoying the market and the other highlights, including goats on the roof of the local restaurant. I'm not kidding. Look up Coombs on the internet!!

But no parking, so Gail grabbed some food for lunch, and we carried on. And on. And on, along route 4. Scenic, but winding, up and down, with narrow roads. Safe enough, so long as you keep you eyes open, so a nice drive. But slow, The kilometer signs seemed to hardly change after a half-hour of driving. But we finally got here, to a very nice r.v. park, and had a lovely walk on the beach. We've also extended for a third night, so will have two days to explore the area. Being as far west in Canada as you can get is pretty neat.

We stopped for some groceries in Port Albernie. While Gail was in doing her duty, I met a very interesting fellow in the parking lot, a local physician. His father and son are also doctors. The father still works at Vancouver General at age 96, along with a few other docs his age, and won't quit until placed in a box. "What should I do at home, get in my wife's hair, and who needs that after 70 years of marriage?" His son, the man I was talking to, was an emergency accident surgeon in Vancouver for 40 years, retired, and soon got bored, so came to Albernie to work in Emerg. No quit in him either. His son, on the other hand, want to work only 5 days a week, from 9 to 5. That's it! The new generation of physicians. Sound familiar?

More later. Stay tuned.